Hi there Headshell Heroes,
You’ve just downloaded a new banger and want to get it into your next set.
But do you ever feel like you can’t trust anything you add?
That’s because most DJs don’t have a proper process when it comes to getting new tunes into their library.
That results in half prepped monsters, scattered and broken files and a collection where you can never trust that what you load onto your deck isn’t going to derail your whole mix.
That’s why there’s a 60 second, 4 step rule I use to make every track in my library trustworthy from the start.
You might think that making a track reliable for your sets starts in your DJ software. But before a track even makes it into your DJ library you need to make sure:
a) It’s not a duplicate
b) Different versions are easy to spot
c) You know what it is, even without metadata
If you download from different sources the most basic of all track information - the filename - can be all over the place.
Remixers before artists, underscores instead of spaces or information you just don’t care about making it harder to see the information you do.
The first thing I do is tidy this up using an automated tool like MP3Tag (other tools are available). They can reformat the filename automatically based off metadata fields.
I like the format Artist - Title (Remix) but go with what works for you.
Consistent file naming makes it so much easier to spot problems, relink files and get a better sense of what you actually have.
With the filename sorted It’s time to get this badboy into your DJ library. FALSE.
Next, move it out of downloads and into your main music folder.
That makes sure it gets included in backups and keeps everything organised.
In many libraries I’ve analysed I see the mistake of DJs over-organising this main folder on their computer.
I recommend keeping it high level. I use a very rough Genre/Sub-Genre structure. You might find year or some other field more useful depending on how you DJ.
This is not where you should actually be organising your tracks for DJing. That happens in your DJ software. So don’t over think this part, just keep things tidy.
Doing this might sound pointless but it allows you to set up user folders in rekordbox that makes relinking files 100x faster and easier if you ever move them in future.
Praise the lord, it’s finally time to get this track into our library and prep it.
But remember, our goal here is to make this track trustworthy and most of all usable, in the shortest time possible.
So in this phase you really need to focus on:
Prep you can do fast
Prep that helps you make decisions on the decks
Prep you don’t have effective workarounds for
Can you beatmatch by ear? Don’t spend a thousand years tweaking an awkward grid.
Do you have beat jump? Set one primary cue now and use beat jump to set secondary ones as needed in future.
Do you almost never use your ‘Favourite animal’ tag when playing? Leave it til later.
By having a ruthless focus on getting tracks to a usable baseline instead spending hours on long prep sessions you’ll find your library will actually get more reliable, not less.
You could consider this final part another tag, but I think it’s more important than that. I consider it a separate part of the process.
It’s where you assign the track a role in your library. A job to do. A reason for it being there in the first place.
Is it an opener, a high point or something that brings the energy up?
If you know exactly what job it’s doing for you, it’s much easier to trust it in your sets because it has a defined outcome.
My video on track roles is the best place to go if you want to learn more.
One of the main comments I get when I talk about any kind of library system is ‘does this work if you play more than one genre?’
Well I’m documenting the process of doing just that for an upcoming video. I’m adding trance to my 100% D&B library to see what parts break and what parts hold up.
If there’s anything specific you’d like me to look into drop a reply or hit me up in the comments!
See ya next time
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